Rights management and enforcement is highly desirable in connection with digital content such as a digital application or the like, where such digital application is to be distributed to one or more users. Typical modes of distribution include tangible devices such as a magnetic (floppy) disk, a magnetic tape, an optical (compact) disk (CD), etc., and intangible media such as an electronic bulletin board, an electronic network, the Internet, etc. Upon being received by the user on a computing device thereof, such user can activate the application with the aid of an appropriate operating system on the computing device.
Typically, an author and/or publisher of the application wishes to distribute such application to each of many users or recipients in exchange for a license fee or some other consideration. In such scenario, then, the application may be a word processing application, a spreadsheet application, a browser application, a gaming application, a media player application, a combination thereof, and the like. Such author/publisher or other similar entity (hereinafter, “publisher”), given the choice, would likely wish to restrict what each user can do with such published application. For example, the publisher would like to restrict the user from copying and re-distributing such application to a second user, at least in a manner that denies the publisher a license fee from such second user.
However, after publication has occurred, such publisher has very little if any real control over the application. This is especially problematic in view of the fact that practically every personal computer includes the software and hardware necessary to make an exact digital copy of such application, and to download such exact digital copy to a write-able magnetic or optical disk, or to send such exact digital copy over a network such as the Internet to any destination.
Of course, as part of a transaction wherein the application is distributed, the publisher may require the user/recipient of the application to promise not to re-distribute such application in an unwelcome manner. However, such a promise is easily made and easily broken. A publisher may attempt to prevent such re-distribution through any of several known security devices, usually involving encryption and decryption. However, there is likely very little that prevents a mildly determined user from decrypting an encrypted application, saving such application in an un-encrypted form, and then re-distributing same.
Rights Management (RM) and enforcement architectures and methods have previously been provided to allow the controlled operation of arbitrary forms of digital applications, where such control is flexible and definable by the publisher of such application. Typically, a digital license is provided to operate the application, where the application cannot be actuated in a meaningful manner without such license. For example, it may be the case that at least a portion of the application is encrypted and the license includes a decryption key for decrypting such encrypted portion. In addition, it may be the case that the license is tied to a user or a computing device thereof, and such computing device includes a security feature that ensures that the terms of the license are honored.
Such a digital license typically includes a set of rights and conditions that govern use of the corresponding application on the computing device. Thus, each license sets forth policies that grant certain rights for specified functionality. With digital licenses, then, a publisher can provide a user with different rights with regard to an application by providing different licenses corresponding to such different rights. For example, the publisher may wish to provide a full-featured edition of the application at a higher price and a rudimentary edition at a lower price. Likewise, the publisher may wish to offer an edition with a certain first feature and an edition without, an edition with a certain second feature and an edition without, an edition with a certain third feature and an edition without, etc.
Note, though, that in the prior art, because each variation of rights in an application would require a completely separate license, offering arbitrary combinations of rights to users was a difficult matter inasmuch as the number of arbitrary combinations of such rights could easily number in the tens, hundreds, and thousands, and each arbitrary combination of rights would require a separate type of license. For example, a publisher wishing to offer an application with five two-state rights (rights that are either present or absent, e.g.), would have to prepare 2 to the 5th power or 32 different types of licenses. Likewise, a publisher wishing to offer an application with four two-state rights and two three-state rights (rights that are present, limited, or absent, e.g.), would have to prepare 2 to the 4th power times 3 to the 2nd power or 144 different types of licenses.
As should be appreciated, then, greater complexities of variations of an application would result in greater numbers of different types of licenses. However, and significantly, it is likely difficult if not impossible for a publisher of such an application to offer more than a limited number of types of such licenses, perhaps on the order of ten to thirty or so. Quite simply, to offer each type of license would require the publisher to maintain each type, including updating and modifying same as necessary, and such maintenance can easily become an overwhelming task as the number of types increases.
Accordingly, a need exists for a method and mechanism by which a publisher or the like of an application or the like can offer by way of a digital licensing scheme arbitrary combinations of rights to users or the like, where the number of different types of licenses representing such rights is minimized. In particular, a need exists for such a method and mechanism by which particular rights or groups of rights with regard to the application are represented by separate digital licenses for the application, and a user obtains one or more of such licenses to correspondingly obtain the rights or groups of rights collectively represented thereby. As a result, the number of different types of licenses for the application is minimized.